


Our battles choose us

by QueenofCheese (Supertights)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Fluff and Crack, Idiots in Love, In which I make up a lot of dodgy science to fit my narrative, M/M, Mentions of Other Voltron Characters - Freeform, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Multiple Universes Colliding, Sheith POV, Sparring, The Author Regrets Nothing, Voltron Downunda Discord Exchange 2019, Yeah Boi!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-28 05:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18204368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/QueenofCheese
Summary: Haggar uses the wormhole corruption spell again, this time to save Lotor. The effects on the residents of the Castle of Lions are very different this time.





	Our battles choose us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EverythingandAnything](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverythingandAnything/gifts).



> For Liz - SORRY IT'S SO LATE! I took your prompt and ran with it, then tripped, fell off a cliff, and into a river. I'm not on the map anymore. I'm lost. Please send help. Many thanks to @Cherry on the Voltron Downunda discord for the beta and @arcadenemesis for the offer.

“Return him to his cell. We’ll deliver Lotor to the Voltron Coalition and they can decide his fate.” The words were spoken coldly, and the command in them so clear that no one attempted to oppose or question them, a far cry from the Allura they all knew and loved. She grew quiet as Lotor was cuffed by Krolia and led away. The princess retreated in the opposite direction towards the control room, with Coran. Romelle followed them with a fierce glare back at the Galran Emperor.

Surrounded by paladins and abandoned by the princess, Lotor appeared defeated. But no one would ever underestimate him again, not even for a tick.

“Go with Mom.” The wolf blinked once at Keith and trotted after the group.

Keith observed Shiro as he watched Lotor leave, his face showing an inner turmoil that Keith didn’t fully understand. Shiro’s hands fisted up and released only to form fists again. A sense of unease took hold of Keith; Lotor was a monster, a very charming personable monster if the team’s surprise, Lance notwithstanding, was anything to go by. Shiro had _fought_ similar monsters, so why did it seem like he was unhappy with the turn of events? Keith was worried that he’d missed too much in the years he’d been gone.

“Still having those headaches?” he asked softly.

With a sigh, Shiro glanced at him. "Yeah."

“Want a distraction?” asked Keith, with a sly smile.

Shiro’s eyebrow quirked, and he was not quite able to keep a smile from his face. “What did you have in mind?”

It was how they came to be in the training room a short time later sparring with energy staffs, laughing and trying to best each other.

Allura’s voice rang through through the air, her tone angry and cold. _“Prepare for wormhole transit to Olkarion.”_

 _“Princess, something large just appeared at the edge of the system. It’s a fleet!”_ shouted Coran in the background. _“Incoming fighters! Brace for multiple impacts.”_

“We need to get to the control room!” Shiro had started to run towards the door, Keith close behind him, when the castle ship shuddered and groaned, explosions knocking them off their feet.

 _“What is that? It must be Haggar, she’s trying to stop us,”_ screamed Allura. _“Wormhole in three, two, o….”_

~*~*~

The door to the training deck opened and the lights flickered on.

“Keith?” Shiro couldn’t stop staring.

Older, bigger, broader in the chest but still lean and deadly everywhere else, he was more _Keith-ier_ than Shiro could’ve imagined. His fur looked sleek and Shiro wondered if it was soft, he wanted to touch it, was barely able to restrain himself from touching. Years apart from the team had been good for Keith; maybe he'd found more than his mother and a star wolf out there.

“I can’t believe you want to spar. You’ve been onboard for what, a few vargas? And this is the best use of our time?” His tail longed to tangle with Keith’s but he set aside those thoughts. For now, anyway. Keith would have to make the first move.

For his part, Keith grinned, enjoying the attention he was getting, baring his sharp teeth. “Best use? No. Most relaxing? Again, no. But fun? Oh yeah. I’m gonna kick your ass, old timer.”

“Old timer?” Shiro strode into the training deck first, selecting a long energy pike from the weapon vault. It could be split into two weapons if necessary, and against Keith, having a multipurpose weapon was always necessary. “Do you mean more experienced at everything? Like kicking an upstart brat’s ass?” His talons slotted into the hand grips and he did a few fancy twirls, because what was the point of sparring unless you could show off a little?

Bright yellow eyes locked onto his and Keith pulled a long, curved sword from the rack, running slim talons along the keen edge. “You’re going down, Shiro.”

With a laugh, Shiro began to run towards Keith, neither could deny their competitive natures in a fight. Keith turned towards him, ready to meet him head on when Shiro surged forward and leapt into the air, angling the pike down, snarling a challenge. Keith spun and backed out of range, swatting Shiro’s weapon with his sword but Shiro reversed the weapon, smacking the butt of the staff into Keith’s chest plate. Adding insult to injury, his tail flicked Keith hard in the face.

Keith fell back instantly to lessen the effect of the blow but he still skidded halfway across the floor on his ass. He rubbed at his check with a grimace, where a red welt was beginning to form over one of his stripes.

Shiro spun the pike one handed again and grinned fiercely at Keith’s yowl of anger, as the smaller man jumped back to his feet and collected a second sword from the vault.

They danced around the room, breaking and exchanging weapons for bigger and more dangerous ones, the wins playing out evenly between them.

Allura’s voice rang through through the air, growling, _“prepare for transit to Olkarion.”_

 _“Something just appeared at the edge of the system.”_ In the background, Coran shouted. _“It's a fleet! Correction, it’s Sendak’s fleet! Incoming fighters! To battle stations! Brace for impact!”_

“We need to be on the control deck!” Shiro began to run towards the door, Keith close behind him. The castle shuddered and groaned, and they were knocked off their feet.

 _“It’s the Empress, she’s trying to stop us,”_ screamed Allura. _“Wormhole in three, two, o….”_

~*~*~

The door to the training deck opened and Keith stopped in front of Shiro. {Does this feel right to you?} His shell began to pulse with the colour of confusion. {I feel weird}

Gliding to a stop, Shiro turned both eye stalks towards him. {Yes? No? Maybe?}

{So we’ve always looked like this?}

{I’m not sure what you mean.}

{Have we always been snai….} His question was interrupted when Allura’s voice rang through through their minds, her tone icy blue.

_{Prepare for wormhole to Olkarion.}_

_{Something just appeared at the edge of the system.}_ Coran hissed. _{Incoming fighters! We need help up here, to battle stations!}_

{The control room!} Keith began to slide towards the lift, Shiro staying close behind him, riding the mucus trail Keith left behind for speed. The castle shuddered and groaned, explosions vibrating through the skin of the ship. They retreated into their shells until the shaking subsided.

Romelle cried out in fear and pain. _{What in shelnak is_ that _?}_

 _{Magic, it’s the Druidess, she’s trying to stop us}_ Allura screamed but everything sounded distant and stretched out. _{Wormhole in three, two, o….}_

~*~*~

“Keith, hear me out because this’ll sound crazy, but we’ve been here before… haven’t we?” Shiro’s head split in half horizontally every time he tried to speak and Keith couldn't shake the feeling that there was something manipulating Shiro's movements.

“Not like _this_ we haven’t,” Keith growled, flapping his tiny fabric arms like he was offended by them. Velcroed to his fingers, a soft blade glowed with tiny glittering sequins stitched along the length of the sponge rubber. “We’re _muppets_!”

Holding out a hand that was coloured bright magenta, Shiro turned his large googly eyes to Keith’s buttons, the pupils bouncing around for a few ticks until he stopped moving. “If I don’t make it through this, Keith....”

“Shiro, we’re not having this conversation any more! This is not the time!”

Allura’s voice rang through through the air, her voice sounded as frustrated as Keith felt. _“Prepare to wormhole to Olkarion. Again.”_

Keith wondered if she was living the nightmare as well.

~*~*~

They leaned against the wall inside the training deck because leaning was better than sitting, which would lead to standing again and then everything would ache or creak or groan. As they found out the first time they tried sitting.

“Keith, I thought my life would be shorter, I never thought I’d get to grow old with you.” Shiro’s eyes widened, his hand covering his mouth in mortification.

“Thinking is not your strongest point then, is it?” Keith turned to look at him; even in what appeared to be his late sixties, with silvered hair, Shiro was beautiful. Lines graced his face with a dignity that life hadn’t much afforded him early on. “Because I hoped your life would be long and happy, and we’d spend every day of it together.” Keith blew a thread of white hair away from his face. It was too long and strands kept finding their way into his mouth. Shiro had tried to gather it in his hands and braid it up. They’d laughed until they were breathless at his attempts, but now a long simple braid was looped around Keith’s neck.

“Keith….”

He loved the way Shiro said his name, adored it, lived for it. Each time reality reset, it started anew with his name on Shiro’s tongue. He wasn’t sure that Shiro was getting anything more than a vague sense of deja vu each time, but for Keith, he’d lived this moment many times, in each one he grew braver, said more, touched more. He wondered absently if his time in the quantum abyss had left him with a residual ability to ride out these alternate lives and take them forward into the next iteration. Surely, it had to end sometime though, when they ran out of alternate universes to exist in.

“Takashi?” He’d called Shiro by his given name before, in many realities, but it always felt too intimate. It made him shy, made him blush, curl into himself.

Shiro turned to look at him, his eyes wide with something that Keith had felt for so long. Love. Fear. Desire. “Keith, you’ve never called me….”

“I love you, Takashi.” Keith closed his eyes, this time he’d managed to get it out before the shift.

_“Prepare for wormhole to Olkarion.”_

~*~*~

Shiro’s prosthetic arm began to lengthen and change; his fingers became talons, hooked and deadly andthe hard flesh grew and covered his shoulder like a carapace. He gripped it in a panic, and looked at Keith. “Keith, go! Leave!”

This had happened before. Approximately thirty seven percent of realities began and ended with Shiro betraying them. Keith knew the signs, knew what to expect, how to counter it now. It was Haggar of course, always the witch before Shiro’s pain.

Keith floated, watching, his blade extended to full size, it glowed softly in the low light. His long tail began to move, the scales and fins glittering like fire as he powered through the water towards Shiro.

“No, no, no no no, Keith, no….” The arm acted independently of Shiro, who looked down at it in horror as it reached towards Keith with menace, spindly clawed fingers stretching out with a pop of new joints growing rapidly into existence.

“As many times as it takes, Shiro.”

Then it wasn’t his Shiro anymore, as something came over his face and filled his eyes with a violent light, the gaze becoming cold and calculating. “Just give in, I’ll make it quick,” the stranger said, with a cruel smile.

“I love you!”

“Yes, I know.”

They always fought for what felt like vargas, back and forth. This time, the water churned and boiled with their powerful strikes, their blood seeped into the water, mingling, making everything murky. In that murk, they could hide from each other easily, circling around, hunting. Shiro lunged out at him from nowhere and Keith’s blade snapped up and cut through the mutated arm like tearing through silk. It came off cleanly, but not before it took a slice out of Keith’s cheek, missing his eye by the smallest margin, it opened the skin and released a fresh veil of blood.

Shiro fell back in shock, eyes flickering shut as he floated away. Grasping his tail, Keith pulled Shiro back. “Takashi!” he cried.

They were both sorely wounded, Shiro trailed blood from numerous slashes to his upper body from Keith’s blade. In turn, Keith winced with every movement, long gashes in groups of five gaped each time he moved. On his chest, his belly, down his tail. Shiro’s attacks had been merciless.

“Keith,” whispered Shiro, his remaining hand reached for him, lacing his fingers through Keith’s so tightly. “I lo….”

_“Prepare for wormhole to Olkarion.”_

~*~*~

“Kill.” Shiro trembled in Keith’s arms. The virus was in his system but it had only presented with the first symptom, fixating on a single word at random.

“No.” Keith stroked Shiro’s cheek, easing the tears away with his thumb. “Kill is Keith.”

“Kill,” nodded Shiro, agreeing, his eyes wide and frightened. They both knew what happened if it took hold, if it went further than this.

They sat on the floor of the training deck, Shiro half in Keith’s lap, his head on Keith’s broad shoulder, supported tightly with one arm while the other caressed his face, his hair, with tender fingers. “Keith.”

“Ki-kill.”

“Keith. Say it with me, Shiro, kill is Keith. _Kill_ is _Keith_.”

Kill would reduce him to a mindless creature, looking for sustenance from any living being he came across. Keith would bring him back from the brink.

“K-K-Kill is Keith,” came Shiro’s mumbled reply.

“That’s it. Kill is Keith.”

“Keith.” Shiro repeated his name again, and slowly, his hand came up to cup Keith’s cheek. “Keith.”

“I love you.” It was so easy now, to say it out loud, to Shiro's face, which bloomed with a relieved smile.

“Kill is Keith. Keith is love.”

"Yeah. I am." He nodded, and for the first time in what felt like a thousand realities, he felt tears on his own cheeks.

Shiro's fingers dipped into the wetness and he looked at it in confusion.

Allura whispered in the air. _“Olkarion?”_

They reset (again).

~*~*~

He wondered if any of the other paladins would remember every universe like he would. So many strange forms but he always recognised Shiro, always knew him instinctively. Like when he’d been a giant insect, a rock (though that one had been harder) and they’d just had to wait it out, when they’d been sparkling ghosts on an empty plain, penguins, dancers, uniformed dragons, jewelled birds, plants, robots, sentient food, pirates. The gaseous reality had been a real trip.

But he was beginning to forget some of the less memorable realities… and those where they’d died. Sometimes Shiro, sometimes Keith, more often both. Some they had mere ticks together, other times entire vargas. The scales were becoming unbalanced, he knew so much more about Shiro than Shiro knew about him now.

“Keith, I’ve missed you. It’s not the same here without you.”

They padded on soft feet through the halls to the training deck, the click of their claws on the floor the only sound of their passing. The door opened but Keith stopped before it.

“Shiro, can we… not train? Let’s go to the star deck instead.”

Shiro stopped and looked at him. “Is everything alright, Keith?” The glow in his eyes dimmed a bit when he asked and he sat back on his haunches with a clunk, his tail swishing across the floor like a hissing snake. When Keith struggled to respond, he agreed easily. “The star deck it is then.”

Shiro glowed, his dark hull reflecting the distant star clusters and galaxies and constellations, and a deep sigh filled the space. “Home.”

“We’ll get there one day.” For Keith, Earth was the world he'd grown up on, it wasn't home. Home was where Shiro was, because it wasn't a place anymore but an emotion.

“One day. Keith?”

“Hmmm,” he hummed softly.

“I think I died after the battle with Zarkon.”

“Why do you think that?”

“There are memories locked in my inner quintessence. Some of them belong to me, from that time. Was I gone after that battle?”

Shiro had been subtly different after the battle, more raw, jagged edges showing instead of always hidden. “Your human body was gone for a while, then you came back.”

“Was it really me that came back?”

“ _I_ thought so.”

“He’s in there though, his memories. He thought he was me too.”

Keith leaned against Shiro, comforting him in the only way he could in this form. He fed warmth and love through their connection. The other Lions responded to it from deeper in the castle. He wondered what form his mother was taking in this reality, what form his wolf.

“Takashi?”

A creak was all that signalled Shiro heard him, moving slightly.

“I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“We know you love us,” replied a strange voice, a voice that was made from many Shiro’s. “We love you too, Keith.”

The star deck fell silent as they sat peacefully, watching stars burn out.

Kolivan broke through suddenly, his voice on comms. “Blade of Marmora hailing the Castle of Lions. Princess Allura, we’ve been trying to ‘make contact with you. Do we have permission to land?”

“Permission granted,” replied the princess, her voice weary. “I am so very glad to hear your voice, Kolivan.”

As the world faded out again, Keith rubbed his cheek along Shiro’s, purring a deep rumble that shook both of their frames. “Will you remember?”

“We will.”

~*~*~

Shiro stretched his arms out and groaned as his body made several loud cracks. “Keith?”

“Yes, Takashi?”

“I’m pretty tired, can we spar another time?”

He must’ve been tired because he hadn’t noticed Keith’s form of address yet. “Me too.”

“Shall we watch the stars for a while then? You can tell me about what you've been doing all this time.”

Keith slipped his arm around Shiro’s waist, feeling the freeze moment when the other man’s brain caught up with the embrace, before he leaned into it with a sigh. “I’d like that.”

“Keith?”

“Yes, love?”

“I feel weird.”

“Oh?”

“I feel… more like myself than I’ve felt in a long time. I don’t have a headache and there’s no sense that someone’s watching me.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Takashi?”

“Hmmm?”

“Have you ever considered playing tennis?”

“Where does _that_ come from? Can you even play tennis is space?”

Keith bit his lip. A reality with Shiro walking ahead of him, wearing white shorts and a soft matching shirt, swinging his tennis racket around as he talked expansively. Those cheeks, those thighs, those calves, shoulder blades that went on forever. Tennis in space. Why not?

_“Prepare for wormhole to Olkarion.”_

_~*~*~_

Haggar waved the viewer away. The signal was irretrievably lost now, confirmed by Operation Kuron agents at the clone facility. They no longer had control over him; the Champion, and Black Paladin, was lost to them. They’d missed their chance to ambush the princess or rescue Lotor before the Castle of Lions entered a wormhole, leaving the system just as the fleet arrived. For a moment, a very long, strange moment-- after she cast her spell to stop them, Haggar had witnessed….

What?

What had she witnessed. It was too strange to even speak of aloud but she had to know. “What is a muppet?” she asked the three generals.

“Muppet?” repeated Zethrid, confused.

“I think I’ve heard of that,” mused Ezor, “is it like a spicy meatball?”

“I don’t think it’s a meatball, Ezor,” said Acxa, glancing at Haggar.

“How do you know it’s not?”

“It could be a meatball,” agreed Zethrid.

**Author's Note:**

> So there might be a few recognisable AUs in here, all credit to their creators (you're beautiful Sheithy people and I love you), and at least one film reference. I didn't write the Galra AU based on any one of the AUs out there but if you want to be linked, lemme know in comments so we can cross promote.
> 
> Tennis AU by @arcadenemesis: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17400668/chapters/40956554
> 
> Title from a song lyric.
> 
> I forgot to do a musical AU, damn. I can hear you all saying, "Whoa, near miss, we dodged a bullet today."


End file.
